The Grammar of a Holy People Text: Leviticus 19:1-4
Introduction: The Center of the Book
We find ourselves this morning in the book of Leviticus, which for many modern Christians is like a locked room in the house of God. They know it's there, they might even peek through the keyhole now and again, but they assume it's full of dusty, irrelevant furniture from a bygone era. They hear words like sacrifice, purity laws, and Sabbath regulations, and they think it has all been superseded, rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ. But this is a grave misunderstanding. To neglect Leviticus is to neglect the very grammar of our redemption. It is here that God teaches us the meaning of words like holiness, atonement, and substitution. And right here, in chapter 19, we are at the very heart of the book, which means we are standing on very holy ground.
Leviticus 19 is a magnificent chapter, sometimes called the Old Testament's Sermon on the Mount. It is a dense, practical outworking of what it means to be the people of God. And it all begins with the foundational command, the central axiom upon which the entire covenant rests. This is not just a collection of arbitrary rules for an ancient tribe. This is a description of a way of life that flows directly from the character of God Himself. God is establishing a people for His own possession, a people who are to be a living, breathing portrait of who He is. The world is full of false gods and the debased cultures they create. But Israel is to be different. They are to be a peculiar people, a holy nation, because their God is a holy God.
Our secular, relativistic age despises this kind of particularity. It despises the very concept of holiness because holiness requires distinctions. It requires a standard. It requires a God who is not an indulgent grandfather in the sky, but a consuming fire. The modern world wants a god who conforms to its image, a god who blesses every lifestyle and affirms every choice. But the God of the Bible does not conform. He commands. And His first command to His redeemed people is that they must be like Him.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, Yahweh your God, am holy. Every one of you shall fear his mother and his father, and you shall keep My sabbaths; I am Yahweh your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; I am Yahweh your God.'"
(Leviticus 19:1-4 LSB)
The Divine Imperative (v. 1-2)
The chapter opens with the source of the command and its sweeping scope.
"Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, "You shall be holy, for I, Yahweh your God, am holy."'" (Leviticus 19:1-2)
First, notice that this is not a suggestion for a spiritual elite. Moses is to speak to "all the congregation." This is for every man, woman, and child in Israel. Holiness is not an elective course for the spiritually ambitious; it is the required curriculum for every citizen of the covenant. There is no such thing as a carnal Christian in God's economy. You are either a saint, a holy one, or you are not His at all.
The command itself is simple and profound: "You shall be holy." The word for holy, qadosh, means to be set apart, to be distinct, to be other. Israel was to be different from Egypt, from which they had been redeemed, and different from Canaan, to which they were going. They were not to blend in. They were not to be culturally relevant. They were to be a nation defined by its radical separation to God.
But this is not a command suspended in mid-air. It is grounded in the very nature of God Himself: "for I, Yahweh your God, am holy." This is the foundation. God is not holy because He keeps a set of rules. God is holy because He is God. Holiness is the essence of His being. He is utterly unique, transcendent, and morally perfect. And because He is holy, His people must be holy. We are to be mirrors reflecting His character to the world. This is not about earning salvation through rule-keeping. The Apostle Peter quotes this very verse and tells us to be holy "as obedient children" (1 Peter 1:14-16). Our holiness is the result of our new birth, not the cause of it. Doing flows from being. Because God has made us His children, we are now to live like it. He has given us His name, and we are not to drag it through the mud.
The Pillars of a Holy Society (v. 3)
Verse 3 immediately gives us two concrete, practical applications of what this holiness looks like. It starts right where we live.
"Every one of you shall fear his mother and his father, and you shall keep My sabbaths; I am Yahweh your God." (Leviticus 19:3)
It is no accident that after the general command to be holy, the very first specific command deals with the family. A holy society is built on the foundation of holy households. The word here is "fear," which is not a cowering terror, but a profound respect, a reverential awe. This is the fifth commandment in different language. Honoring your father and mother is the bedrock of all social order. The family is the first government, the first church, and the first school. If the authority structure in the home collapses, the entire society will follow. When children despise their parents, they are really despising the God who established that authority. This is why rebellion in the home is treated with such severity in the Old Testament. It is not just a family squabble; it is treason against the King.
The second pillar is keeping God's Sabbaths. The Sabbath is a weekly declaration of dependence. For six days, we labor and exercise dominion over creation. But on the seventh day, we rest. We stop. We acknowledge that the world does not, in fact, rest on our shoulders. We confess that God is the Creator and Sustainer, and we are merely His creatures. The Sabbath is a covenant sign, a weekly reminder of who is God and who is not. In the New Covenant, we celebrate the Lord's Day on the first day of the week, because it is the day of the new creation, the day Christ rose from the dead. But the principle remains. To neglect the corporate worship and rest of the Lord's Day is to declare independence from God. It is to say, "I am the lord of my own time." And that is a form of idolatry.
Notice the refrain at the end of the verse: "I am Yahweh your God." This is the divine signature. This is not the advice of a self-help guru. This is the law of the sovereign Creator. He has the right to command because He is the one who made you and redeemed you.
The Rejection of False Gods (v. 4)
From the foundations of family and worship, the text moves to the fundamental temptation that threatens both: idolatry.
"Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; I am Yahweh your God." (Leviticus 19:4)
An idol is any created thing that we substitute for the Creator. The word for idols here literally means "nothings" or "vanities." To turn to an idol is to turn to a delusion. Molten gods are the work of our own hands. We take the good gifts of God's creation, melt them down, and fashion them into a god that we can control, a god who makes no moral demands on us, a god who serves our appetites.
We must not think this is a primitive problem. Modern man is just as idolatrous as ancient man; he just uses different materials. We no longer bow to golden calves, but we bow to the idols of money, sex, power, and the state. We worship the god of self. The fundamental sin of man is the desire to be his own god, to define good and evil for himself. This is the lie of the serpent in the garden, and it is the lie at the heart of every false religion and every secular philosophy.
When a society rejects the true God, it does not become godless. It becomes polytheistic. It fills the vacuum with a host of petty tyrants and foolish superstitions. We become like what we worship. If you worship a god of stone, you become hard-hearted and stupid. If you worship a god of lust, you become enslaved to your passions. If you worship the state, you become a cog in a machine. But if you worship the holy, living, and true God, you are transformed into His image, from one degree of glory to another.
Conclusion: The Covenant Signature
Three times in these four short verses, God declares, "I am Yahweh your God." This is the anchor for everything. Why should we be holy? Because He is holy. Why should we honor our parents and keep the Sabbath? Because He is Yahweh our God. Why should we reject idols? Because He is Yahweh our God. This is covenant language. He is not a generic deity; He is Yahweh, the God who made promises to Abraham, the God who brought them out of Egypt, the God who has bound Himself to them in a covenant of grace.
This is our God. The command to be holy is not a burden laid upon us to crush us. It is a glorious invitation to share in the life of God Himself. But we cannot do this on our own. The law reveals our sin. It shows us how unholy we are. And that is its purpose: to drive us to the only one who ever was truly holy. Jesus Christ is the perfect fulfillment of Leviticus 19. He was perfectly holy. He perfectly honored His Father. He is our Sabbath rest. He smashed the idols. And on the cross, He took our unholiness upon Himself, so that we might be clothed in His perfect holiness.
Therefore, we are not called to a life of grim, white-knuckled striving. We are called to rest in the finished work of Christ and, out of that rest, to live as the holy people He has made us to be. We are to build strong families, delight in His worship, and tear down the idols in our hearts, our homes, and our land. Why? Because He is Yahweh our God, and we are His people.